


Start With Complicated and Work Backwards

by Asymptotical



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Pining, Sometimes you have to go on dates instead, Violence doesn't actually solve everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 13:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20192899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asymptotical/pseuds/Asymptotical
Summary: Wrath was used to women just falling into her bed the moment she wanted them.Lana was more complicated.





	Start With Complicated and Work Backwards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gammarad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/gifts).

Wrath wasn’t used to it taking effort to get someone into bed. 

It had been an idle thought at first. Lana was cute. Lana flirted with her between stabbing pirates. All the signals were there. 

But the timing wasn't, then. They weren’t in the middle of a very strange crisis in a very strange space, with a republic agent nearby. _Sometimes_ even Wrath knew better than to get distracted by sex. 

She was assuming Lana would be an easy conquest for later, given all the flirting. One that could and would wait. Lana seemed to be into her and generally people who said dramatic poetic things like calling Wrath ‘the soul of the empire’ weren't the sort who wouldn't be happily tumbled into a bed just because Wrath took her time getting around to it. 

It had also given her some time to focus on figuring out what she would be when they were finished on Yavin. It wasn’t an _idle_ thing, betraying the person who made you what you were. Sure, they _said_ they were after Revan, but he didn’t matter. He was a tool of her Master, just as _she_ was a tool. A tool with eyes on her as Vowran had so helpfully pointed out. 

It wasn’t a surprise when they had failed on Yavin and her Master had returned anyways. It would make things interesting going forward to be sure, and she was certain he wouldn’t be happy with her… but she’d made a choice and she’d put a lot of thought into why and how she was making it. If she joined the endless list of forgotten names of dead people who had betrayed him, then at least her betrayal had been to _save the galaxy _and not for some idle greed. 

It would have been the perfect time to actually make good on all that Rishi flirting, once everything was done with. If 'done with' could ever mean 'hanging over their head like a flickering saber ready to drop'. 

But now Lana seemed perfectly professional. 

It wasn’t the promotion. Wrath had considered it, coldly, before dismissing it. She'd had plenty of people want to sleep with her for a promotion. She'd even slept with plenty of people who were just angling for a promotion. She'd even killed a few who had tried to throw Wrath's name around afterwards like they had any right. But that didn't seem to fit what Lana had been doing. 

Maybe Lana was just into the pirate aesthetic from Rishi? 

But no, it wasn’t that either. 

Lana was just… too professional. 

Most people, Wrath could count on being ambitious, but Lana was practically a Jedi her ambitions were so pure. She wanted to protect the empire and be useful and stop the galaxy from ending. 

She was the _perfect_ person to be in charge of Intelligence. She was incorruptible. 

She was new ground. 

Wrath didn’t really know how to seduce someone who wasn’t looking to use her influence to get somewhere. Even as an acolyte or an apprentice, there was _always_ someone weaker than her willing to be flirted into bed. 

And there still was. There was a list. Wrath could have (almost) anyone she wanted with a tilt of her head. 

The problem was that none of them were _Lana_. 

So she had a choice. Either fixate, because she would if she didn’t stop it now, or drop it entirely. 

She could drop it. She should drop it. There were plenty of women in the empire, plenty of them objectively stronger and more fun, there was no reason for her to focus on the unambitious workaholic. 

Then halfway through thinking it over she bust into Sith Intelligence to demand a report and Lana looked up and _smiled_ at her and she made a decision. 

She fixated. 

* * *

She found reasons to be in Intelligence, she found reasons to try and ask Lana along on missions, she found reasons to show up places that Lana was working. Usually it was easy. Figuring out what the Emperor was up to was a long and complicated task with about as many moving parts as seconds he’d lived. And if there weren’t reasons, she did it anyways. 

Lana sighed at her the tenth time she showed up somewhere she shouldn’t be, clearly annoyed, “You can’t keep appearing on classified missions.” 

“I can do whatever I want.” Wrath informed her. 

* * *

Regardless of what she said aloud, Wrath decided to back off. To a certain extent. There was almost always something to kill where Lana was, but there was _also_ about ten times as much to do where Lana _wasn’t_. There was something to be said for the value of unpredictability. 

She wasn’t so much worried about their enemies as she was about other Sith. If they knew The Wrath of the Empire was much more likely to show up if Lana was there then that could be subtly manipulated. 

They wouldn’t stay terrified of Wrath if they could _predict_ when she’d descend on them like an angry hand of god. 

So Wrath decided to give it some time before she next inserted herself into Lana's affairs. She went after people still loyal to the Emperor, or found some idiots that seemed to be getting complacent and destroyed them the moment they fucked up and gave her an excuse. 

She also found one easily startled nest of light Sith. She handed them over to Jaesa. Either this whole test would blow up in their faces (and probably kill her very useful little apprentice in the process, which would be a shame) or she’d end up with a secret cache of healers. 

She could do a _lot_ with a secret cache of healers who were still Sith through and through. It was the mindset she needed at that point, not the alignment. And if Jaesa could find and teach more people to do what she did… 

Just another reason to keep everyone too afraid of her to question what she did. 

So the next time she ran into Lana, it wasn’t an idle whim. For once it was actually the sort of accident she’d been pretending every other time was. 

She didn't like it. Not being able to choose the timing meant that things were already terrible when she got there. 

She wasn’t even certain what the situation was. It was Sith against Sith. Complicated. Usually she’d take time to figure out who was the traitor here. Usually it wasn’t the one it appeared to be at first glance. Sith were tricky, the usual indicators didn't apply. 

Lana was one of the Sith. 

Wrath didn’t hesitate. One moment, it was Sith force against Sith force, the next she was tearing through the side that wasn't Lana's. 

By the time she was done murdering, Lana’s people had very wisely withdrawn to a safe distance. 

Which was worrying because normally Lana would jump in to back her up. 

When Wrath stormed into the ruins where Lana’s energy was coming from she didn’t bother to pull her battle aura back in. Most of Lana’s agents stayed standing. It was annoying. Impressive, but annoying. Of course, some had lived through Jadus so maybe it wasn’t _that_ surprising. The rest would have been handpicked by Lana and _better_ be a step above the normal. 

It didn't matter. 

Lana was hurt. She was wrapped in kolto but Wrath could still sense the injury, could see the rents in her clothes where a lightsaber strike had hit. 

She should have killed the other Sith slower. 

Lacking the ability to torture a corpse, she just stopped in from of Lana, who looked up at her with a bit of relief. “You were late.” 

“My invitation must have gotten lost.” Wrath could feel her aura calming down, even if tactically she should still make it very clear to everyone within range how pissed she was. Lana wasn't going to take advantage of Wrath's favor to gain status, so Wrath would just have to do it for her. She dropped down to sit next to Lana, letting her unease hide behind a smirk. “Or maybe I was hoping for a damsel in distress to rescue. You don’t make it easy. There needs to be an awful large amount of distress for you to even need rescuing. I’m not even sure if this counts.” 

“I do try not to get into conflicts without proper backup.” Lana sighed. Her words sounded matter of fact, and that seemed to be having a calming effect on her people, who were starting to drift away to get back to tasks. 

(Had they clustered to protect Lana when they felt Wrath approaching? That was stupid. Loyal and admirable and brave, but stupid. Wrath liked them.) 

“You _do_ realize you have one particularly strong backup you can call on, yes?” 

“If I call on you for every emergency then it’ll take the threat out of it. You’ll start trying to turn a conflict into an outing.” Lana’s eyes sparkled a bit and it was like they were back on Rishi. 

And joking about Wrath turning things into dates was practically an invitation. 

It wasn’t much. 

But she could be patient. 

Or maybe she should have tried the normal thing and just asked Lana out for drinks instead of destroying her enemies. The boring harmless date and talking thing. Destroying their enemies together _was_ more traditional but Lana was odd. 


End file.
